


Shadows of things that have long since fled

by ana-keen (PNGuin)



Series: Battle-Hymn of the Republic [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (Still), (he doesn't get it), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Anakin ruminates over how war has changed things, Character Death, Gen, Jedi Culture, Survivor Guilt, Unreliable Narrator, depictions of war, so much self-loathing, the Jedi are genuinely good people none of that "they abused Anakin" bullshit here, war affects even the places not directly hit by battles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PNGuin/pseuds/ana-keen
Summary: At the height of the Clone Wars, Darth Sidious knows that his decades-long plans are nearing fruition. There remains but one man, one obstacle, one inconvenience that stands between him and complete control.Obi-Wan Kenobi must die, and then Anakin Skywalker will be his entirely.Darth Sidious, for all his careful planning, makes a grievous miscalculation. One which changes everythingOr, the one where Anakin returns to the Jedi temple.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Battle-Hymn of the Republic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686262
Comments: 15
Kudos: 229





	Shadows of things that have long since fled

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place a couple days following the preceding one-shot, No voice of mourning save the choirs. I strongly suggest reading this series in order.
> 
> Title comes from the poem "Afar in the Desert" by Thomas Pringle.

Anakin, unlike the vast majority of Jedi, remembers the first time he stood on the steps of the temple. Nine-years-old, recent winner of the largest podrace in the galaxy, befriender of Jedi knights and royal handmaidens and even a Gungan, freshly freed from slavery, gone from his mother’s side for the first time in his life, Anakin had stood at the base of the temple steps between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and thought that even the richest Hutt would be jealous of such a palace.

He hadn’t said as much. Most slaves on Tatooine knew better than to speak of the Hutts, and even though he had been far from the dustball of his homeworld, he had been too afraid to say it. But that hadn’t stopped him from the infinite questions, almost a new one for each step they took. _How old is this place? What’s it made out of? How many stairs are there? How many Jedi live here? Why does it look like that? Why is it right in the middle of the city? Who cleans everything? Are there a lot of droids? Where does the food come from? Does it have running water? Where does the water go when you’re done with it?_

And each absurd little question had been patiently answered, even as they had climbed higher and higher. Until they had reached the top and approached the towering doors where Anakin had fallen into a hushed silence so absolute that it could have been the sound of the Xelric Draw in the heat of the day, broken only by the muted noise of Coruscanti traffic.

Coruscant had been loud and bright and fascinating to Anakin. All gleaming glass and shiny metal and countless thousands of speeders that he had itched to get his hands on. But it had also been overwhelming and cold and crowded and dirty compared to the wide open skies of Tatooine and the warm scents of street foods floating down sandy roads and the people who had been familiar if not always kind. Only days prior, Anakin had felt like the king of the universe, the youngest contestant and only human to ever win the Boonta Eve Classic; being in Coruscant had abruptly made Anakin feel small and insignificant in the vastness of the galaxy.

But then he had stepped into the great hall of the temple, walls so massive and the area so spacious that the entirety of the Quarters in Mos Espa could have fit there, and he had breathed in incense that had smelled of spices and comfort and warmth. And Anakin had still been afraid, but he remembers it being hard to remain afraid with the cool refreshing air of the temple, and the contentment that had seemed to settle along the walls and seep into all who walked within, and that sudden realization that, for the first time in his life, he had been surrounded by people who could _feel_ the world like he did.

He had felt the childish joy of the crechelings who had scampered past, and the exasperated fondness of the padawans that had been following behind them, and the calm greeting of the knights and masters that idled in the halls. The temple had been larger and more ornate than anything Anakin had ever seen, sounds seemingly swallowed up by the towering walls and arching halls. It had been quiet but not. The sort of quiet that lingered after the suns had set and the people of the Quarters gathered round fires, the sort of quiet that preceded drumbeats and singing and dancing. Charged with the potential for something great and achingly familiar to his own mother’s embrace.

The temple is quiet now.

The sort of quiet that is corrosive and invasive, gnawing away at his insides like how a starving beast strips meat from a bone. The sort of quiet that exists in the vast desolation left behind when something is lost, a gaping vaccuum opened up in the air, a black hole that drags more and more into it until everything is gone. The sort of quiet that falls heavy and pervasive over the dessicated bodies and exposed bones of old battlefields, the abandoned streets and derelict homes of occupied towns, the aching stillness of a galaxy-wide graveyard.

There are no crechelings playfully chasing each other, no padawans reluctantly attempting to herd sticky-fingered younglings, no knights bickering over lightsaber forms or sharing stories of recent missions, no masters distinctly pretending not to gossip. Anakin steps into the great hall of the Jedi Temple and feels swallowed whole by the aching emptiness where once there had been life. The absence is jarring, that same phantom awareness as when Anakin first lost his arm. Things are just similar enough, everything only a few inches past normal, that the uncanniness skitters across his skin like thousands of insects. Sometimes, Anakin will accidentally bang his prosthetic limb on the under-carriage of a ship and feel a responding ache, though there are no nerves there to make him hurt. Sometimes, Anakin will return to the Temple and feel the echo of joy and peace and contentment, and it tingles with the same sharp ache as a phantom limb.

 _A burden to bear, the Force can be_ , Master Yoda once mentioned to Anakin and a class of initiates, when Anakin had been so impossibly young and bright-eyed and desperate to please. Back then, Anakin had thought of how he’d been able to sense when people died in the Quarters long before his mother knew, of how he’d had nightmares of Tusken raids that happened cities away, of how he’d been able to feel a slave’s public punishment as if it had been his own back being whipped. And he had looked around at the other children his age, who had lived within the safe confines of the Temple nearly their entire lives, who had never feared for food or water or shelter or punishment, and he had wondered what any of them had known about burdens.

It had been a cruel thought back then. It still is now. But it is one that nonetheless plagues him at times, when younglings intercept him and naively beg for stories of the warfront, when he overhears some of the snootier non-combatant Jedi scoff at how brutish and violent war is, when there are debates within the lecture halls about the morality of the Order’s involvement in galaxy-wide cruelty. There is always some vindictive part of him that wishes they understood, that they had felt the sort of pain Anakin had in his childhood, that they would look at the world and see all the horror that he has.

Coruscant has been affected by the war only tangentially. It’s the indirect way that means rich people can’t import their favorite fruits from Felucia or their favorite teas from Ryloth or their favorite jewelry from Christophsis. It’s the oblique way where there’s coverage on the HoloNet News channel every hour, but the only images they show are scenes of heroic Jedi and mountains of disassembled battle droids and not the piles of dead troopers or the skeletons of abandoned cities. It’s the incidental way where less Jedi come home and the Halls of Healing are always full and padawans can’t leave the temple unsupervised because too many violent protesters are targeting Jedi in poorly conceived attempts to blame someone for senseless violence.

It’s the hollow way, like that carved out part of Anakin’s mind that will never heal, not truly, that will continue to exist in its absence as a constant reminder of things lost. Anakin looks the same in all the ways that others would care to notice, and when he runs his awareness over the entirety of his own Force presence, he can skip over the jagged chasm where a part of Obi-Wan once resided and it feels almost the same. Close enough to normal that Anakin can almost _force_ himself to believe it. He can look out to the skyline of Coruscant, the shining metal and blinking lights and neverending traffic, and he can believe that nothing has changed. He can go to the Room of a Thousand Fountains and sit amongst the undisturbed foliage and he can believe that the world has remained untouched by war. He can ignore the part of his soul where Obi-Wan resided, and it can almost feel like he is not gone.

But the war _has_ affected Coruscant, has affected the Jedi Order, even if there are no burning homes and bombed cities to show for it. There is a darkness, a silence, a suffocation and corruption that lingers thick and heavy in the Force, threatening to swallow the temple and Coruscant itself whole. Like the gaping maw of a sarlaac in the middle of the desert, a yawning pit of filth and fear and futility, where lost dreams and lost souls are unceremoniously tossed. It is a harsh contradiction against the calming murals of the Jedi temple, a shrill note in the otherwise harmonious melody of the Force. Sometimes, Anakin lets himself think about it and wonders how many other Jedi feel that encroaching darkness, or if maybe it’s _just him_. Maybe that darkness has touched Anakin in ways that it has not touched other Jedi, maybe that makes him see it where others do not.

When Anakin was a boy, still new to the Jedi and terrified of losing his newfound freedom, he had nightmares. Visceral, primal, endless nightmares that plagued him every night. He hadn’t slept those first few nights at the Temple, and Obi-Wan — even exhausted and mourning the death of his own master — had been quick to catch on. But no amount of meditation with the Jedi masters, no amount of medication from the healers, no amount of sessions with the counselors had managed to eradicate the nightmares. On the worst nights, Obi-Wan had dragged himself out of bed and let Anakin cling to the loose sleeves of his robes as they aimlessly wandered the halls of the temple. They had never really kept a destination in mind, instead Obi-Wan had just let Anakin pick a direction. Sometimes the Room of a Thousand Fountains, sometimes the Archives, sometimes the hangars, sometimes an insignificant little alcove. Sometimes, they never ended up anywhere. They merely walked until Anakin no longer felt the need to run from his nightmares. For minutes or hours or all night.

Anakin wanders the familiar halls of the temple, aimlessly and senselessly. The doorways pass in a blur so that he cannot remember where each of them lead, he doesn’t remember what wing he is in or what direction he must turn to reach his own quarters, he doesn’t remember the last time he felt so unforgivably _lost_ in a place that is meant to be his home. But he doesn’t really think that the _temple_ has ever been his home, not truly. He has raced through the halls and set up pranks in the alcoves and gotten his ass handed to him in both the Archives and the training salles, but _home_ has never been a physical thing to Anakin, not the slave boy who grew up with no physical possessions and no guaranteed bed. _Home_ is the feel of his mother’s arms around him, the soothing vibration of her humming while his head rests on her chest. It’s the pervasive scent of Obi-Wan’s favorite tea and the quiet rustling as he readies for the day. It’s the effusive joy of Ahsoka’s laughter shattering the quiet and the warmth of her presence as she leans against his side.

And it’s gone. Never to be returned to again. As allusive as a dream, as intangible as smoke, as somber as the grave. Gone with the same sort of finality he’s seen in bombed houses and burned homes. A quieter death than many of the war’s casualties, but a death nevertheless. _There is no death, there is the Force_ , a better Jedi than Anakin would say. But Anakin has seen too much of war to hold such a maxim as truth. There is far more death than the Jedi know what to do with.

So he wanders the silent and empty halls of the temple, feet aching and sore but he refuses to stumble on them. He avoids the Council chambers where he is _supposed_ to have a debriefing, and he ignores the Halls of Healing where he knows he _should_ go, and he absolutely under no circumstances wanders anywhere near the residential wing where the small apartment he’s shared with Obi-Wan since he was nine still remains. It would merely be cold and empty now, anyway, and there is no point in seeking comfort where there is none to be found.

There is no point in seeking comfort at all. For Anakin knows that he will never know comfort or peace or ease another day in his life. He knows, even, that all the preciously few days of comfort and peace he has known beside his mother or Obi-Wan or Padmé or Ahsoka were only ever the exception to the rule of his life. Unlike the vast majority of Jedi, Anakin had never been born for peace. His soul has belonged to war from the moment the Force chose him, as furious and untempered and brutal as the chaos of battle.

His comm unit beeps and Anakin finds himself stopping in the middle of the hall. There is no one around him, no warming presence of fellow Jedi, only the empty hall and the echo of things that existed in happier times. His side stings from where he had torn off a bacta patch earlier that day; Kix must have bandaged the blaster wound at some point, but Anakin cannot recall visiting the medbay in the haze of days since their last campaign. Since _Obi-Wan_.

Anakin knows without looking that it’s another summons to the Council’s chambers. He was meant to report directly to them on his arrival back at the temple, but the very thought of standing before the Council, bearing only half of the members they usually retain, surrounded by a ring of mostly empty chairs, has bile welling at the back of Anakin’s throat. Acidic and bitter like the tang of blood and blaster afterfire on his tongue. A dreadfully familiar taste that hasn’t seemed to leave him alone since his first beating on Tatooine, a reminder of the galaxy’s cruelty that constantly haunts him, fouler than any spirit or ghost.

Over half of his mission debriefings since being knighted have been delivered with someone at his side. Obi-Wan, usually. Or Ahsoka. Someone to help temper the wild storm of his emotions, someone to help ease him in the presence of the Council and their calculating gazes. Anakin has, admittedly, tried to avoid addressing the Council alone; has tried to avoid their scrutinizing gazes and sharp awareness, that dreadful sense that they could see clear past all of his shielding and know those deepest, darkest parts of himself that even Anakin avoided looking at. He’s never wanted to know what they see in him, for he fears the answer just as much as the question.

Obi-Wan would not avoid the Council like this, wandering the halls of the temple as if still a youngling fleeing nightmares. _Obi-Wan_ would report right to the masters, offer a succinct and accurate and respectful depiction of events, and then humbly accept whatever was said to him in response. But for all the years that Anakin attempted to emulate his master, he has never been able to accomplish that same deference, that same humility, that same _Jedi-ness_.

So he stands in the hallway, as alone and lost and scared as he was all those years ago, freshly freed slave and reluctantly accepted nuisance of the Order. And he thinks about nightmares and wandering the halls while clutching at Obi-Wan’s sleep rumpled clothing. About doing the same thing alongside Ahsoka, on those chilling nights where his own padawan could only think of war and pain and violence. And a part of him — childish and hopeful, like he’s still that oblivious and foolish little boy on Tatooine — can’t help but think if he keeps wandering the halls, then — finally, eventually, inevitably — they will somehow lead him back to Obi-Wan’s side and he will clutch at his master’s robes as if he is still that young padawan and the two of them will silently wander the quiet, dark hallways of the temple just as surely as they’ve wandered the battlefields of war, side by side, Kenobi-and-Skywalker, the Negotiator and the Hero With No Fear, The Team. Always.

Always. And never again. Such is the way of the Force.

Anakin — for all his many faults, for all the anger that nestles deep in his chest and the fear that thrums through his veins and the darkness that has made a home in his heart — still remains a soldier in times of war. He turns on his heel, knowing unerringly which direction the Council chambers reside, and he marches on to his next battle. Always another battle, as there has been since taking his first gasp of life on the arid and inhospitable sands of slavery. He cannot contemplate a life without war, without battle, without some great meaning hiding behind all the misery and fury and hatred he weathers. There _must_ be something behind it all, for Anakin to have been born chosen by the Force and enslaved by greed, for Anakin to have loved so much only to lose it all. For Anakin to have loved Obi-Wan, only to lose him.

But to the Council’s tower he goes, opting to take the long route, up the spiraling stairs that seem to go on endlessly. He tries to count them as he ascends, but it reminds him too viscerally of how Obi-Wan would tell him to count his steps in an effort to walk somewhere without Anakin’s ceaseless chatter, and he gives up before he even reaches one hundred. When he inevitably climbs the last step, legs shaky as if he has been running for days, the two padawans acting as secretaries greet him and allow him to pass without fanfare. He doesn’t recognize either of them — they are younger than Ahsoka and her peers, and Anakin has not been asked to teach younglings or padawans since the start of this war — but he knows enough about them to feel pity. One has their arm bound in a sling, the other bears bandages that wind up from under their tunic and cover their throat. Council chamber door duty was once a dreaded chore; now it is a quiet reprieve.

Anakin, unlike the vast majority of Jedi, remembers the first time he stood before the High Council. Nine-years-old, recent winner of the largest podrace in the galaxy, befriender of Jedi knights and royal handmaidens and even a Gungan, freshly freed from slavery, gone from his mother’s side for the first time in his life, Anakin had stood before beings of such power and wisdom that he had felt their presences in the Force bearing down upon him like physical things, suffocating in the confined space, choking out the memory of wide open Tatooine skies. Their gazes had been calculating, their questions probing, their examination critical, and in the deepest parts of Anakin’s heart he had thought of slave auctions and having his shirt stripped from his back and begging the world to not be sold.

He had stood before thirteen of the most powerful Jedi masters in the galaxy and been told he was _too afraid_. They had been right, all those years ago. But Anakin sometimes finds himself wondering if they ever truly understood that which he feared. Not even Anakin has been able to fully untangle the knot of fear buried deep within his very soul.

He stands before the Council — what _remains_ of it — now and can feel only that aching _absence_. That same echo of things lost that resonates throughout the temple, floating down the empty halls, invading the hushed communal spaces, infiltrating even the precious few remnants of joy in the creches. The same hollow nothingness that is louder than the Coruscanti traffic and more putrid than the landfills and more numerous than the trillions living on the planet.

There are always thirteen seats circling around the council chambers; twelve for the Jedi masters, one for the Grandmaster of the Order. When Anakin had first stood before the Council, all of the chairs had been occupied. For much of his apprenticeship, the chairs had been filled; only occasionally would a few masters be missing from the circle. Now, eight of those seats remain empty, a silent monument to masters fallen or otherwise engaged in some hopeless battle across the galaxy. Anakin absolutely refuses to glance at the seat reserved for Obi-Wan, half-thinking that he would turn to see his master’s pensive frame highlighted by the setting sun, his hair copper in the light, one hand stroking at his beard, one leg crossed over the other. But Anakin knows that looking and failing to see such a familiar sight would wound him far worse than any blaster.

He tries to ignore the aching absence in the chambers, tries not to look at the empty seats that dominate the space. Tries, instead, to latch onto those deceptively still and calm presences of Master Yoda and Master Windu, the only two Council members physically present. Scattered beside them, three other masters — Plo Koon, Depa Billaba, and Ki-Adi-Mundi — are present only in holo form, their images distorted by the grainy blue.

No one says anything for a long, still moment. As if they’re all holding their breath, waiting for that crackling energy within the Force to pass over them and leave only calm or peace in their wake. Or maybe it is not the Force doing that, perhaps it is Anakin himself. And the masters are watching him with those same calculating gazes, waiting for him to slip and tumble, waiting for the inevitable disaster that follows Anakin like his own shadow. Except there is no disaster to await, for it has already hunted Anakin down and struck the one that Anakin foolishly believed to be immune to his curse.

In the silence of the Council’s chambers, with the weight of the masters’ regard heavy on his shoulders, in that emptiness where Obi-Wan is meant to exist, Anakin thinks — not for the first time, nor for the last — that it should have been him. Should have been Anakin torn apart by the explosion, should have been Obi-Wan who returned in one piece to the Jedi. Because Obi-Wan would have returned to his seat on the Council, would have returned to his position as a high general, would have continued to be the ideal Jedi everyone expected.

And Anakin? Anakin is not — has never been _, will_ _never be_ — what Obi-Wan was. Not for all the admiration he has for the man, not for all those hours a young padawan spent secretly attempting to learn _soresu_ forms, not for all those nights pouring over Obi-Wan’s reports in a vain attempt to absorb some of his eloquence and intelligence and comprehension. Obi-Wan is — _was_ — the sort of Jedi so necessary to maintain order in such catastrophic times; the sort of man who dried the tears of crying refugee children and who negotiated deals with hesitant politicians and who spared the lives of enemies who did not need to die, the sort of leader who understood the necessity of fighting back but who knew how to rebuild from the chaos of war. Anakin has only ever been good for destroying things, for tearing everything apart and dismantling whatever fragile peace may possibly remain.

He is not Obi-Wan. He _cannot be_ Obi-Wan. No matter how hard he has tried, he has never achieved that which his master always wanted from him. And he can feel it, in that aching silence between himself and the Jedi Council, that they know of his failure. That they know of how he has gone and gotten one of their best and brightest members killed.

 _You will be the death of me, padawan mine_ , Obi-Wan used to say, and _oh_ if only he knew how truthful the statement would grow to be.

Somewhere along the spiralling train of his thoughts, Anakin’s eyes have sunk below the masters to rest on the repetitive pattern of the floor. He cannot bring himself to look up, cannot find the strength to fight a war he is already destined to lose. Perhaps that is what the Force has chosen him for. To fight and fight and fight and always lose. Perhaps his entire existence is a lesson in futility and defeat for the Jedi.

“Young Skywalker,” Master Koon is the one to break the heavy silence, his voice distorted by both the holoprojector and his mask. For all that Anakin has known the Kel Dor for more than a decade, his tone is indecipherable. “We grieve with you,” he says.

The words are soft, hushed, _quiet_. That same quiet that haunts battlefields and the temple, that settles heavy over dessicated bodies and bleached bones, that fills the empty nothingness where Obi-Wan is supposed to be. No amount of softness applied to such words could ease their blow, and Anakin cannot even recognize if he manages to hold back a flinch or not. Surely, he _must_ , for none of the masters watching him with those severe gazes say anything. And, surely, they would find any reason they could to point out his flaws; they have certainly never held back their criticisms before.

And all Anakin can think about, in that silent moment that stretches and stretches until it feels ready to _snap_ , is standing before Obi-Wan’s funeral pyre, all those months ago when his death had been nothing but a lie. Of standing close enough to the flames that they nearly burned, a promise of physical pain to equal that of the pain in his heart, of failing to hold back tears as members of the Jedi Council surrounded him and watched him from the corner of their eyes. Always watching him, always ready to point out how he has failed as a Jedi. Jedi do not mourn at funerals, Jedi do not cry over fallen masters, Jedi do not grieve the loss of bonds that were no longer meant to exist in the first place.

Anakin cannot find it within himself to deign Master Koon with an answer. There _is_ no answer for such words. The same way that the empty platitudes from Padmé’s mouth had left no dent in Anakin’s misery following his mother’s death, the same way that hollow apologies had done nothing to bring Ahsoka back. The Jedi Council cannot be grieving with Anakin, for how could they know the agony in Anakin’s heart? They have lost one of their masters. Anakin has lost far more.

“One with the Force, Master Kenobi now is,” Yoda adds, his wizened voice steady. As unaffected by the loss of one of the greatest Jedi to live as he is by the daily weather. Anakin wonders what such serenity has cost him. Wonders if the price was worth it.

Anakin doesn’t think he could ever pay it. Doesn’t think he would ever want to. The life of a Jedi is a life of sacrifice, but there are some things that Anakin holds too precious to give away. Obi-Wan is one of those things. And it’s why Obi-Wan’s lightsaber remains clipped to Anakin’s belt on his non-dominant side, a testament to the man who always had his back. It is customary for the lightsaber of a deceased Jedi to either burn with the owner, or be turned over to the Archives to join the vast collection of ownerless lightsabers. If the Council expects Anakin to simply hand over Obi-Wan’s lightsaber, then they will have to pry it from his own lifeless fingers. A lightsaber is a Jedi’s life, and Anakin _knows_ — deep in his own heart — that Obi-Wan would want to finish out this war, in any way he possibly could.

The least Anakin can do is give him that.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been so silent before the Council. Usually, there is an argument, or a disagreement, or even just some banter that leans a little closer to _sharp_ then necessarily warranted. Since his knighting, Anakin has not often allowed himself to be silent simply for the contentment of the Council. The longer this war drags on, the more arguments Anakin has accrued about it. And he has never much been an idle person, never much been someone who could keep his mouth shut. Not even in front of masters. Maybe _especially_ not in front of masters.

But in this instance, Anakin cannot think of any words in the several languages he’s fluent in that could ever accurately convey that soul-deep pain that lances through his heart. There are no words for the way he aches for all the things that cannot be regained.

Master Yoda heaves out a sigh, and for the life of Anakin he cannot discern what the wearied sound could possibly mean. Frustration at Anakin’s inability to be a good Jedi? Exasperation that Anakin continues to fail in the worst of ways? Irritation that Anakin has gone and gotten one of the best Jedi killed?

“How feel you, young Skywalker?” the wizened Jedi master asks, quiet voice nonetheless loud in the heavy silence of the room.

Anakin remembers the first time he stood before the Jedi Council, in dirty, sandy slave rags that had been smeared with bits of blood and engine oil from his podrace. There had still been sand encrusted in his hair, and his ribs had protruded from the tight stretch of his skin, and a yet unhealed scar on his back from Watto’s final punishment that he had been too afraid to tell any of the handmaidens or Jedi about. And he had stood there before the distant, calculating looks of the Jedi masters and thought about how it felt to be in an auction, having his shirt stripped from his back and his skin exposed to the twin suns, his meager frame poked and prodded, his chin gripped in someone’s hand and his head forcibly turned side to side, looking to find all the ways that he was worth less than dirt.

 _Cold, sir_ , he had said, all those years ago. The words burn at the back of his throat, tasting of sand and dust and ash. He wants to say those words again, wants to lament the icy hollowness that rings in the gaps left in his heart. Anakin is cold again, but this time there is no mother to wrap her arms around his thin frame, no Qui-Gon to rest reassuring hands on his shoulders, no Ahsoka to lean against his shoulder, no Obi-Wan to stand at his side and offer his gentle warmth. Anakin stands before the Jedi Council and feels more alone than he ever has in his entire life.

“Tired, master,” are the words that somehow find their way past his lips, a half truth that seems to ring with a smarting honesty.

His voice croaks, and Anakin doesn’t know if it’s from shouting orders too recently or not speaking for several days. He can’t remember the blur of time from the end of the funerary service to the decampment of the 501st and 212th to the days spent in space on their way back to Coruscant. It washes away into a hazy recollection of a hundred different planets, a thousand different battlefields, a countless number of days drifting through space in a war-torn galaxy. Anakin doesn’t remember if he snapped orders or fell silent, but he knows without the memory that Rex and Cody had been left to pick up the pieces of his fallen command. The shame wells hot and furious, like blood and bile collecting at the back of his throat. It has never been Rex or Cody’s responsibility to make up for Anakin’s failures.

Anakin shouldn’t _be_ tired. He’s the Chosen One, one of the greatest Jedi of his generation, a decorated war hero and the youngest general amongst the Grand Army of the Republic. He can’t afford to be tired. Not the sort of exhaustion that wears down upon him as a physical thing, heavy and unwieldy. Unbidden, Anakin remembers when he used to complain of being tired, hands sore and blistered from working in Watto’s shop; he remembers the cuff on the back of his head and the cruel sneer from the Toydarian. Somewhere deep within him, small and trembling like a child, he find himself half-expecting the impact of Master Yoda’s gimer stick against his shins, though logically he knows that the blow would never come.

Master Yoda sighs once more, and it’s all Anakin can do to tense his muscles and hold back the flinch that threatens to creep up his spine. He feels like a young padawan all over again, fresh to the customs of the Jedi, tensing the unpracticed muscles of his body to hold some unfamiliar pose necessary for a kata, wracking his brain for the answers to questions he’s never been asked before, holding back the full brunt of his power in the Force in a way he never had to on Tatooine, like squeezing himself into a box that got smaller everyday.

Somewhere deep within him, that patch of oily darkness that he has tried to push away all his life, writhes with the restrained fury of a struck slave. It coils like a shadowy snake, tensing and readying to strike, mingling with the sharp echoing emptiness of his loss until it is a maelstrom of emotion, each one indistinguishable from the next. He wants to snap at the Council, at their empty platitudes and their heavy silence and their inability to _end_ this damn war. How dare they try to offer him their meager sympathies when they know nothing of his agony? _They_ were not the ones who felt the brutal tearing of Obi-Wan from their bond, not the ones who clutched at the remains of Obi-Wan’s hand, not the ones who stood before a burning pyre and sang a battle-hymn for the fallen.

What do they know of his grief? What does _Anakin_ know of his own grief?

Obi-Wan would know. Somehow, through some unspoken understanding, Obi-Wan would _know_ all that Anakin could not put into words. He would rest a hand, warm and grounding and infinitely gentle, on Anakin’s shoulder. And he wouldn’t even have to say anything, would just look at Anakin with that familiar expression — compassionate and understanding, even when Anakin least deserved it. And Anakin would settle back into his own body, his Force presence soothed by the weight of Obi-Wan’s at his side, his heart calmed by the warmth of Obi-Wan pressed against his shoulder. His soul would stop trying to thrash out of the shell of his body, and it would ease back, clicking into place as if it had never tried to escape.

But Obi-Wan is gone. Anakin is alone before the Council. And, to his greatest shame, he never really learned how to ease his own spirit without Obi-Wan there.

It is Master Windu who speaks next, tone exhausted and wearied, no doubt from the endless frustrations he’s had to manage while dealing with Anakin. “You’re on leave for two weeks, Skywalker. Get to the Halls of Healing, get some rest, get some non-ration food in you. You have a mandatory session with the mind healers before you can be shipped back out. We will discuss contingencies regarding,” a quiet aggrieved sigh, a sound now so familiar among the Jedi, “regarding the command of the 212th and the Third Systems Army.”

Bile rises in Anakin’s throat and he thinks of _Umbara_ , of leaving his troops under the command of another Jedi. He thinks of Cody, of Waxer and Boil and all of Ghost Company, of how Obi-Wan effectively got half of his battalion hooked on his favorite tea, of how they routinely updated Anakin on whether or not Obi-Wan had been sleeping or eating or going to the medic as needed. Of how they would be assigned to a new general, a Jedi who was not theirs, who maybe wouldn’t allow them their weekly sabacc nights or the friendly gambling like Obi-Wan had often overlooked.

Anakin lost his master, his brother, his best friend. The GAR lost its very best and most compassionate general. The Jedi lost their very best master. War is so terribly cruel and Anakin isn’t sure how much longer he could breathe through the taste of ash and dust and blood that never seemed to leave his mouth.

He finds himself nodding nevertheless, agreeing with the Council out of blind muscle memory more than anything, a passivity to him that he once thought left behind in lieu of his passion. But he agrees numbly to the Council, and then he’s dismissed from the Council chambers, their gazes heavy and unsettling on his back as he turns and walks away. Their eyes follow him until he’s through the door, and he can feel the weight of their awareness tracking his progress through the temple all the way to the Halls of Healing. If he doesn’t focus on it, Anakin can almost convince himself that Obi-Wan is up there with them, that it’s Obi-Wan’s overbearing concern drifting through their bond and ensuring that Anakin actually goes to see the healers. Can almost imagine that he will wake up tomorrow in the healing halls and Obi-Wan will be seated at his bedside, reading over datapads and stroking his beard in contemplation, the lines at the corners of his eyes creased in concentration until he looks up and finds Anakin awake, and then the lines will deepen with a smile.

Anakin lets the healers check over the wounds that Kix must have already treated at some point — a few fractured bones in his flesh hand, some blaster shots on his side, a still open scrape on his chin — and he lets them usher him into one of the overnight beds and he lets them administer a sedative to help him sleep through the night. And as he drifts into the numbing haziness that only medicine can offer, Anakin dreads waking back up only to find the chair at his bedside empty.

**Author's Note:**

> Some quick things I want to address. I mentioned it in the tags but I'll say it again: Anakin is an unreliable narrator, and just because he perceives or believes certain things about the Jedi Council's behavior it doesn't make it the truth. In this household, we love and respect the vast majority of the Jedi Order, because they are genuinely good and kind and compassionate people who genuinely care about Anakin. I'm not here to write about the Jedi's """abuse""" of Anakin; this is, ultimately, a story of Anakin learning to heal precisely by following the way of the Jedi. Eventually.
> 
> Also, for all that Anakin argues with and gets snotty with Obi-Wan a lot in canon, we also have seen just how much Anakin admires the absolute fuck out of his master, so of course young padawan Anakin would have tried to emulate everything about him only to fail and feel guilty. That's practically canon, at this point.
> 
> Finally, I'm sorry this took so long and that it's a little boring (at least, I kinda think so), but I needed a transition from the battlefield to the Jedi temple and this was the best I could do. These one-shots are pretty emotionally heavy, and I assure you that for every minute you cry over them, I spend another couple hours crying over them!
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe,  
> ~ana-keen


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